Episodios
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Iâm happy to post the final chapter of my continuing series on Jean Rollin. This segment is about what became of Rollinâs career following the fallout of The Living Dead Girl, and how is final stretch of movies were organized around themes of nostalgia and self-referential pastiche. I argue that in Rollinâs career, we can see a clear passage between two cultural epochs: from the modernism of his experimental early work, to the funereal postmodernism of his late films.
0:00 - Freudâs distinction between mourning and melancholia
2:51 - Streets of Bangkok
4:22 - Lost in New York
7:06 - Fredric Jamesonâs theory of postmodernism and the significance of nostalgia
9:53 - self-reference in Killing Car, Two Orphan Vampires, and Draculaâs Fiance
11:02 - Night of the Clocks
13:22 - conclusion
If youâve made it this far, I want to say thank you. This has been my most challenging project so far, but itâs also turned out to be some of my proudest work. I hope that the series contributes to the broader conversation on Jean Rollin, both by helping new viewers approach Rollinâs work for the first time, and perhaps to enable new meanings for seasoned fans.
If you enjoyed the series, please consider making a donation and sharing the series with others. A project like this depends entirely on word of mouth, so please help put it in the fans of Jean Rollin fans everywhere.
As for whatâs next: I have a few straggler videos that Iâve been wanting to finish, including more nunsploitation, as well as a return to Carol Cloverâs Men, Women, and Chainsaws.
Longer-term, I want to do videos on Hellraiser, Jess Franco, Joseph Sarno, Nazisploitation, Paul Naschy, Lucio FulciâŠand much more. If thereâs anything in particular youâd like to see, donât hesitate to reach out and let me know via email or Instagram.
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Jean Rollinâs early work featured repeated imagery of renegade female pairings and doppelgĂ€ngers. In those films, like Shiver of the Vampires and Requiem for a Vampire, the motif was employed as a surrealist technique for communicating fairytale wistfulness, imperiled innocence, and a sense of the uncanny.
But in his more mature work, Rollin explored a series of female relationshipsâincluding sexual, circumstantial, and sisterly variationsâto represent some of his deepest themes.
As we can see in these three films, Rollin saw female intimacy as the privileged vehicle for the way we achieve death-like transcendence in other people, a transgressive form of connection that burns so hot that it erases the boundary between self and other, thus verging on the experience of death.
Timestamps
0:00 - introduction
0:52 - Fascination (1979)
6:58 - Zombie Lake (1981)
9:27 - The Escapees (1981)
16:43 - The Living Dead Girl (1982)
This is the penultimate chapter of our study on Jean Rollin. You can catch up on the entire series here. In the final chapter, weâll examine the mournful final phase of Rollinâs career. His descent into self-referential pastiche and meta-nostalgia has something to say about the two cultural epochs his career straddledâmodernism and postmodernismâand helps us tie a bow on an understanding of his work as a whole.
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¿Faltan episodios?
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To honor the passing of Pope Francis, Iâm reposting a nunsploitation video I did back in my Youtube days. Every if you followed my work back then, itâs possible you havenât seen this one. I have a strong suspicion that this is the video that got my channel banned. It was starting to blow up for a day or two before the ban.
The discussion here is a sequel to the video I did providing an overview of the history and elements of nunsploitation generally, which was also paired with a thorough analysis of Ken Russellâs The Devils (1971). Russellâs film remains the foundational masterpiece, but these four films provide a panoramic view of what nunsploitation became throughout the 1970s: a complex exploitation subgenre with fascination variations thematically, geographically, and stylistically.
Timestamps
0:00 - introduction
0:34 - Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973)
5:19 -Satanic Pandemonium (1975)
10:08 - Alucarda (1977)
15:08 - Killer Nun (1979)
Here I refer to these four as the âbestâ nunsploitation films alongside The Devils, but in retrospect I feel like Iâm leaving an important one out: Bruno Matteiâs The True Story of the Nun of Monza (1980). Thatâs another very important one that Iâve come to appreciate greatly. You can be sure that Monza will be featured in my next video on nunsploitation, which will also analyze the nunsploitation-horror movie Mattei filmed concurrently using the same sets and cast: The Other Hell (1981). Stay tuned!
But before that, weâll return to the career of Jean Rollin to finish out the last two chapters of our five-part Voluptuous Melancholy series. Catch up on our Rollin series here.
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In this third segment of Voluptuous Melancholia: A Critical Examination of the Films of Jean Rollin, we not only encounter some of Rollinâs very best work, but also reach the fullest exploration of his most important artistic theme.
Following his early vampire cycle, Rollinâs work took a new direction. His work became more intensely personal, as he struggled to express something profound about the human condition. Across three key filmsâThe Iron Rose (1973), Lips of Blood (1975), and Night of the Hunted (1980)âwe see characters experience an inarticulable sense of incompleteness and loss, a gap in their soul that leads them in search of a lost object to fill it.
But such completeness is elusive, and instead we see a turn toward oblivion, death, and the dissolution of fixed identity. In my view, these visions of darkly romantic fatalism embody the very essence of Jean Rollinâs work.
This segment also explores the more unseemly side of Rollinâs career, namely his detour through sexploitation film and eventual banishment to hardcore pornography in the late 1970s. As weâll see, his most artistically pure films were always his biggest financial failures. The closer he came to saying what he wanted to say through film, the more he needed to debase himself as a filmmaker. This inextricable link between his proudest work and most humiliating failures is another of the most important things to understand about Rollinâs life and career.
Timestamps
0:00 - introduction
0:33 - The Iron Rose (1973)
8:23 - sexploitation features Schoolgirl Hitchhikers (1973) and Fly Me the French Way (1974)
9:37 - The Demoniacs (1974)
11:45 - Phantasmes (1975) and Rollinâs hardcore work
13:38 - Lips of Blood (1975)
20:13 - The Grapes of Death (1978)
21:47 - Night of the Hunted (1980)
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This is part two of our ongoing series VOLUPTUOUS MELANCHOLIA: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FILMS OF JEAN ROLLIN.
In this segment, we dive into the first phase of Rollinâs career, which was comprised of four vampire films in a row. Weâll see his style emerge almost fully formed from the very beginning, beginning with the chaotic Dadaism of his first feature Rape of the Vampire (1968), through to the more patient and elegant style achieved in his fourth film, Requiem for a Vampire (1971).
After these first four films, Rollin was forever associated with vampires. But after these four, Rollin largely left vampires behind, as his career unfolded in a number of new directions.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Rape of the Vampire (1968)
4:02 - The Nude Vampire (1970)
8:21 - Shiver of the Vampires (1971)
11:38 - Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
In the third segment, weâll explore the middle portion of Rollinâs career, which features some of his finest work and most important artistic themes.
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Welcome to VOLUPTUOUS MELANCHOLIA: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FILMS OF JEAN ROLLIN!
Our first installment provides a thorough introduction to Jean Rollin, and is appropriate for both beginners and those already familiar with Rollinâs work. The video introduces some biographical background on Rollin, as well as a discussion of the French film culture that he emerged from in the 1960s. As weâll see, a confluence of influences resulted in his distinctive style, which we can identify with the term poetic surrealism.
Lastly, the video provides some tips and caveats on Rollinâs work. Nobody made films like Rollin, before or since, and itâs best to understand that going in.
Timesamps:
0:00 - introduction and personal note
2:09 - biographical background
3:15 - French New Wave, poetic realism, and surrealism
6:35 - is it horror?
7:45 - contextualizing the erotic dimension
9:10 - narrative style, or lack thereof
9:54 - emotional viewing and interpretation
This was a challenging series to research and assemble, not least because of the inherently enigmatic and remote nature of Rollinâs work. His movies are sometimes challenging, and it can be even harder to write about them, let alone understand. The series is a humble attempt at doing all of the above, and I hope youâll join me and offer your own perspectives on this remarkable, odd, fraught, and painfully unique filmmaker.
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Robert Eggersâs Nosferatu (2024) inspired a strongly negative reaction in me. But it was a reaction that arose from a tangle of mixed feelings. Iâve continued to circle and reconsider my take on the movieânot only because my network of friends and amateur critics largely seem to have enjoyed itâbut also because of the particular subject matter and style on display.
In many ways, Nosferatu is not only the kind of movie I could see myself making; itâs the movie Iâd be worried that Iâd make: something that others with shared sensibilities would clock as phony, pseudo-intellectual, and out of its depth.
I understand what people are responding to in Nosferatu, and it brings me no pleasure to criticize it so harshly. For a while, I questioned whether I should even do the video, as Iâd much rather spent time studying work that I find interesting and enjoyable. Itâs actually not much fun explaining what you donât like about something.
I hope the criticisms Iâve offered will come across as minimally thoughtful and respectful, even where I refrain from pulling punches.
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This is the first video in a planned series on nunsploitation cinema. One of the most notorious and mischaracterized subgenres of exploitation film, nunsploitation movies offer complex and provocative treatments of themes like desire, taboo, and transgression.
For many years I was not a fan of these movies. The reason for this, I discovered a few years ago, was that I just wasnât digging deep enough. Once I expanded my research, I discovered that these are some of the most fascinating exploitation films ever made.
This first video introduces nunsploitation film generally, identifying its key themes and characteristics, and also discussing the genreâs literary tradition and emergence in the late 1960s.
The remainder of this video provides an analysis of Ken Russellâs The Devils (1971).
Timestamps:
0:00 - Definitions, key themes, and essential features
2:24 - Cultural history of the naughty nun as medieval trope
4:39 - connections to the Marquis de Sade
6:16 - proto-nunsploitation in film history: Angels of Sin (1943); Black Narcissus (1947); The Nun (1966)
8:22 - conditions for the emergence of nunsploitation proper: Vatican II, Italian film industry, and The Lady of Monza aka The Awful Story of the Nun of Monza (1969)
11:03 - Ken Russellâs The Devils (1971) as the foundation and epitome of nunsploitation
21:22 - Conclusion
Future entries in this series will explore individual films in more depth. For those that would like to âread ahead,â the next part of the series will cover the following, which are four movies that I think represent some of the very best of the genre:
Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973)
Satanic Pandemonium (1975)
Alucarda (1977)
Killer Nun (1979)
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This video offers a detailed interpretation of Andrzej Ć»uĆawskiâs Possession (1981), viewed through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. My hope is that it works both as a close reading of Ć»uĆawskiâs film, which can be baffling as much as it is beloved, as well as a primer on the work of Jacques Lacan.
No prior understanding of psychoanalysis or Lacan is necessarily. Itâs strongly recommended, however, that you watch Possession first. This is not only because the video contains substantial spoilers, but also because the interpretation will make the most sense after youâve had a chance to experience the movie on a visceral, emotional level. That is the ârealâ way to experience Possession, with intellectualization and interpretation coming later.
In fact, watch it twice! đ
Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction: a competition of fantasies
2:44 - Spy games as queer intrusion
5:19 - Primer on Lacanian psychoanalysis
8:07 - Markâs fantasy of phallic possession
14:48 - Annaâs fantasy of feminine masquerade
20: 58 - Conclusion: the otherâs desire
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This essay interprets two filmsâThe Witch (2015) by Robert Eggers, and Antichrist (2009) by Lars von Trierâthrough the lens of the existentialist feminism of Simone de Beavoir. Note that the discussion involves heavy spoilers for both films.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
3:04 - The Witch (2009)
5:45 - The existentialist feminism of Simone de Beavoir
9:12 - The Witch (2009) continued
11:20 - Antichrist (2009)
19:10 - Conclusion
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For the holiday season, Iâm reposting my Christmas horror video from last year. Iâm glad to do so, because when I first tried posting to Youtube, the platformâs capricious AI copyright monitoring wouldnât let me include the segment on Christmas Evil. Thatâs perhaps the strongest part of the video, and the most popular film analyzed here, so it was a shame.
Iâm delighted now to present my full analysis of three overlooked Christmas horror movies!
0:00 - Introduction
0:25 - Silent Night, Bloody Night aka Night of the Dark Full Moon (1972)
4:08 - Elves (1989)
7:22 - Christmas Evil (1980)
Iâm already thinking about what to cover next year. Maybe a full analysis of the entire Silent Night Deadly Night franchise? A comparison of three generations of Black Christmas iterations? More obscure Santa slashers? Supernatural Christmas horror?
Let me know in comments email etc what youâd like to see!
Thank you as always for your support, and happy holidays to you and your inner circle.
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From the Gutter Studies Vault, this is a video summarizing and discussing the first part of Carol Cloverâs book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover is best known for coining the term âfinal girlâ, a rare example of a phrase that has come into popular usage from film theory.
The video covers both this concept and Cloverâs wider theory about the horror genre as a return to the unconscious fantasies of so-called âone-sexâ sexuality.
What does that mean? Watch to find out.
This is the first part of a planned four-part series covering Cloverâs entire book. So far Iâve done the second video, covering Cloverâs theory of supernatural horror, but I stopped halfway to focus on other stuff. The second half covers rape-revenge films, as well as Cloverâs take on âgazeâ in modern horror.
Itâs an interesting book covering lots of territory, so Iâd love to finish the series one day. If youâre keen on seeing more, let me know via comments, email, etc.
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In this second episode of GUTTER TALK, I chat with lifelong horror fan Cynthia Rzucidlo about the year in horror. Cynthia counts down a top 13 horror movies on the year, and we compare notes along the way. At the end, we also talk about the horror movies weâre still looking forward to as the year comes to a close.
Follow Cynthia on Instagram.
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Goth Renaissance concludes. This chapter ties together everything weâve seen so far, identifying the key themes and characteristics of Italian gothic horror, and showing how it laid the foundation for decades of Italian exploitation film.
Giallo, nunsploitation, spaghetti western, the gorefests of the 80sâall of it owes something to the Italian gothics.
If you enjoyed the series, please consider supporting the project in the following ways:
* Share on social media
* Recommend to friends
* Become a free email subscriber
* Make a donation by becoming a paid subscriber
As always, thank you for watching and for your high opinion of low culture.
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In the fourth chapter of our series Goth Renaissance: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror, we analyze three of Barbara Steeleâs best movies. Weâve already encountered Steele twice in previous installments, but these three are essential entries for any overview of Italian gothic horror.
More than that, this trilogy of films represents not only the best work featuring Barbara Steele, but also can be seen as a certain culmination of Italian gothic horror. They pull together so many of the genreâs essential features, represent some of the finest work the period had to offer, and also point the way toward the genreâs dissolution in the late 1960s, as Italian exploitation film continued to evolve.
In many ways, and for better or worse, the story of Italian gothic horror is the story of Barbara Steele.
Timestamps
0:00 - the Fellini detour
1:15 - Castle of Blood (1964)
5:21 - Nightmare Castle (1965)
8:59 - An Angel for Satan (1966)
15:10 - conclusion
This is also the final âmainâ installment of Goth Renaissance. The fifth and final chapter will offer concluding thoughts on this period in Italian filmmaking, and explain how the gothic slowly gave way to Italian exploitation film.
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This is a video essay from the Gutter Studies Vault, exploring three movies that seem to confirm the worst fears of radical feminism.
Fair warning: itâs one of my most challenging and provocative essays on horror so far, drawing on some of the most grisly themes and images in the genre. The essay reads the graphic and disturbing nature of these films alongside the complex and controversial radical-feminist theory of Catherine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin, and Carol J. Adams, as well as the post-Lacanian feminism of Luce Irigaray. As youâll see, the feminist theorists of the 1980s were themselves incredibly dark and morbid, and itâs interesting to observe that their work was roughly contemporaneous with the trend of films discussed here.
This essay works as a tie-in to the subject matter covered in part 3 of our Goth Renaissance series:
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This is part three in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror. You can explore the full series here, or dive right into this one.
In previous installments, weâve seen how Italian gothic horror exhibits a preoccupation with female monsters, villains, and characters.
Beginning in 1962, a counter-tendency began to emerge. These films not only shifted a focus to the masculine perspective, but ended up on its dark side.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:52 - The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock (1962 dir. Ricardo Freda)
4:08 - understanding morbid desire in the gothic tradition
7:28 - trashy paperbacks and the birth of Italian giallo
8:14 - Horror Castle aka The Virgin of Nuremberg (1963 dir. Antonio Margheriti)
11:27 - Bloody Pit of Horror (1965 dir. Massimo Pupillo)
16:54 - sociological and film-historical perspectives on Italian masculinist cinema
Next time, as a âsee furtherâ on some of the more challenging and provocative themes covered here, weâll be reposting a classic from the Gutter Studies Vault:
Stay tuned (if you dare!)
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GUTTER TALK is an audio-podcast supplement featuring casual, freewheeling discussion on subject matter covered on Gutter Studies.
On this episode, I talk to writer, collector, and pop-culture obsessive Mark Ambrose about Mario Bavaâs foundational Black Sunday (1960), as well as other early Italian gothics Lust of the Vampire (1957) and The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), and later Italian horror in general.
The conversation here can be listened to on its own, or alongside episodes one and two of the GOTH RENAISSANCE video series.
Follow Mark on his new Twitter/X account.
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This is part two in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror. Watch part one here, although this installment can be watched on its own.
In the first part, we covered the emergence of a distinctly Italian form of horror, noting the ways that Italians were already changing the genre. But those movies were prologue. It was a modest cinematographer named Mario Bava that truly changed the game, starting with his iconic directorial debut Black Sunday (1960).
Following that movieâs wild international success, Bava continued to lay the foundation for Italian horror with some of his finest work: Black Sabbath (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963). Of all the movies we cover in this series, these three movies are the most essential.
Today, more than any other, the name Mario Bava has become synonymous with Italian gothic horror.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro covering Mario Bavaâs pre-directorial career; ideation and significance of Black Sunday;
2:40 - Black Sunday (dir. Mario Bava, 1960)
9:19 - Black Sabbath (dir. Mario Bava, 1963)
18:16 - The Whip and the Body (dir. Mario Bava, 1963)
22:39 - Summing up the significance of Bavaâs early directorial career
As mentioned previously, Iâm deeply indebted to the work of Tim Lucas in creating this segment. Nobody has done more to surface and immortalize Bavaâs merits and the fascinating details of his remarkable career.
Note: Subtitles are auto-generated and may have inaccuracies.
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Welcome to the first installment of GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror.
The series will run biweekly for a total of five installments. For a full watchlist of the films covered, see the series announcement page.
In this first installment, I discuss the context in which Italian gothic horror emerged, including the unique conditions of the Italian film industry, as well as the evolution of horror movies internationally since the silent era. With that foundation, I discuss in detail three of the earliest and most important examples of the genre.
Read together, weâll see how these first Italian gothics set the stage not only for the gothic horror craze of the 1960s, but also for the thing that horror movies would become from the 1970s forward: an exploitation film genre centered around graphic sex and violence.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction and context
5:49 - I Vampiri aka Lust of the Vampire (dir. Ricardo Freda, 1957)
11:40 - The Vampire and the Ballerina (dir. Renato Polselli, 1960)
15:58 - Mill of the Stone Women (dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1960)
21:05 - Concluding observations: commonalities, themes, and key characteristics
24:35 - Up next
Finally, I must acknowledge that in creating this series, I stand on the shoulders of giants. More than anyone, I am indebted to the work of Tim Lucas, whose magisterial tome Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark furnished me with not only endless factual information and technical observations, but also a tremendous amount of inspiration. Nobody has done more to give this genre its due. I also relied heavily on Roberto Curtiâs Italian Gothic Horror Films (1957-1969) for its comprehensive coverage of this moment in horror history, as well as Kristin Thompson and David Bordwellâs textbook Film History: An Introduction (3rd Ed.) for crucial background on Italian film history in general.
On the off-chance that any of these scholars happen across this page, please know that this series is dedicated to you.
Note: Subtitles are auto-generated and may have inaccuracies.
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